The Rise of Jihad, Killing of ‘Apostate Imams’ and Non-Combatant Christian Civilians in Kenya

Since the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) deployment into Somalia in 2011, terrorist related attacks have increased targeting anti-jihadi Muslim clerics, churches and noncombatant Christian civilians. These and other attacks indicated the rise of a homegrown radicalised section of the Muslim population in Kenya, willing to undertake jihad and kill fellow citizens in the name of Islam. In this regard, the article explores the intra-Muslims conflict emanating due to divergent views on the concept of jihad, and how ultimately the variances are supposedly resolved by imposing the apostasy claim on the opposing clerics. In varied occasions, suspected al-Shabaab militants and their Kenya jihadist counterparts have attacked churches, and killed non-combatant Christian civilians. The atrocious killing of both anti-jihadi Muslim clerics and non-combatant Christian civilians, and coupled with the exclusivist jihadi supported discourse imply the conflict is transforming into a broad-based violence between Muslims and non-Muslims. Therefore, this paper identifies three arguments associated with the jihad discourse in Kenya; (i) rationalising the jihad cause in the present ethno-nationalist Somali war; (ii) the apostasy claim arising due to intra-Muslims conflict boosted by the jihad discourse; and (iii) the justification of targeting non combatant Christian civilians during the ‘jihad’ attacks.